Underneath the Water
by rapunzells
Summary: Actual partners in crime Belle and Gold are ready to settle down and finally live a normal life, but the woman they're working for has other ideas. They realize there's only one way to escape her.
1. Miles and Miles

He was a dead man walking. If anyone found the evidence and connected it to him, he'd be done for. But that was the least of his fears. They wouldn't find the evidence now that it'd been chopped up and deposited into different parts of different bodies of water throughout the state.

His hands shook, though. Whether from fear of being caught or adrenaline, he didn't know. When he looked to his shaking hands he saw the blood. Blinking a few times, the blood disappeared. Of course there wasn't blood. He'd washed his hands in the river. Nonetheless, he scrubbed at his hands until his skin peeled off in the bathroom of a convenience store.

He pulled up to the Baptist church, the stark white building shining in the Southern sun. He sat in the safety of his Cadillac, watching the young families pulling their children by the hand into the building. With a sigh he grabbed his cane, making his way into the church. Inside, he scanned the pews for the curly blonde shade of hair that he knew came from a box. He missed her brown hair.

He spotted her, the angel that she was, in a white dress. He slid into sit next to her. Her blue eyes held a question in them. _Did you dispose of the evidence?_ He subtly nodded his head, noticing when she visibly relaxed. They were right on schedule. Noticing his still shaking hands, she grabbed onto them, engulfing his hands in her smaller warm ones. She sat as close to him as possible, going so far as to rest her head on his shoulder as if they were in the back row of a movie theater rather than in the middle of a church.

Neither of them listened to the sermon; they never did. They only showed up at church to make appearances. People who go to church every Sunday are less likely to get noticed when they commit crimes right and left. Hiding in plain sight was part of the plan.

Soon they will leave. They timed everything perfectly. When they put their house on the market they knew it would be sold in time for them to flee town after committing their biggest crime. The 'sold' sign has been in front of their house for a week; nobody would think anything strange about them leaving at the same time as people notice that Greene is missing.

Once they leave, they're never coming back. When they moved here, Zelena Greene had led them to believe that she would let them go free soon. For years they'd both done her dirty work. Neither of them willingly helped the redhead, but Zelena had her ways of forcing desperate souls to work for her.

When Zelena sent them both to rob a bank in Chicago, Belle and Gold found themselves drawn to eachother. Zelena quickly noticed how well they worked together, so she hooked them up with an apartment in Chicago to do more of her dirty work there together. She set them up with fake identities and fake wedding rings. She continued to move them often; not wanting her best two criminals getting caught. When she told them she was moving them to a small town in Alabama, she promised she would only ask one more favor of them before they could lead normal lives. She lied. She kept them in the same pattern of being criminals on the run. Zelena continued to use them for her illegal pursuits, pushing them farther than they were strictly comfortable. After two years living in the town as Lacey and Mr. French, she asked them to kill an innocent for money. That was when they realized she would never let them go. It wasn't the first time she'd asked one of her dancing monkeys to murder an innocent citizen, and Belle and Gold knew it wouldn't be the last. So on the night they were meant to kill a rich aging woman, they instead killed Zelena. It had been easy.

Knowing the murder she told them to commit would cause chaos in town, Zelena had been kind enough to accommodate for them to start a new life in a small town in Maine. In a few hours they would pack up what already hadn't been sent on the moving truck and they would drive across the country.

Zelena wouldn't follow them this time.

Throughout the whole church service he kept thinking about the feeling of the blood on his hands from last night. He could never manage to think of good or even decent things while in church. Every week the two of them sat in the parish, feeling like their crimes were branded on their skin. No preacher could save their souls from damnation.

During a particularly long prayer he slipped into the bathroom to scrub at his hands some more. Zelena wasn't his first kill, but it was the first time he knew who he was killing. He'd looked her in the eyes many times. He wouldn't have met Belle if he'd never had the displeasure of knowing Zelena. His reflection looked about ten years older than he really was. His eyes looked almost as dead as the body he cut into pieces and disposed of in the water.

At the end of the service they went back to their house, hoping to catch some sleep on the couch they would leave behind before leaving town forever. Despite spending the whole night covering up a murder, neither of them could catch a minute of sleep.

Somehow his hand ended up under the skirt of her white dress, caressing her thighs. What started as innocent caresses ended up in him bringing her off with his talented fingers, and then again with his tongue. They decided they wouldn't be able to sleep, so they stood up from the couch, their church clothes now wrinkled.

They weren't new to being on the run, but they were new to settling down. The car ride would be long, but in the end they'd be able to finally live normal lives. As he drove she rested one hand on his thigh, the other holding a novel open in her lap. He had no doubts that once they put all this behind them, she would move onto somebody else such as a younger man without a criminal record. When the time came he would let her go; she deserved much more than him. But he couldn't help but fantasize about a life in Storybrooke, Maine where they were together, and the wedding rings on their fingers weren't fake.


	2. Devil's Backbone

They fell into their new lives easily. It had been years since they went by their given names, but it felt good to finally be able to introduce herself as Belle. The blonde hair dye easily washed off in the shower. She was also finally able to put her college degree to good use. While Gold opened up a pawn shop (they'd stolen enough valuables over the years to keep the window display interesting) and started buying properties, she worked on reopening the Storybrooke Public Library.

Even though they settled in the coastal Maine town, he was still mentally a man on the run. The pink Victorian house they bought felt like a temporary living space at most times. It wasn't until she convinced him to put some of their finer antiques on display that the house began to feel more like a home. Little by little they were getting used to staying in one place, but it was hard.

Neither of them could shake the guilt of all they'd done over the years. When they decided they had to kill Zelena in order to be free of her, he hadn't let Belle kill her. He wanted to be the one to bear that burden. While Belle waited in the Cadillac late that night, he knocked Zelena out, letting her bleed to death on top of a garbage bag. It was him who cut up the body parts and stuffed them into separate garbage bags. He texted her when he was finished. While she cleaned the house of any evidence that they'd been there, he took most of the bags of body parts, disposing of them in different bodies of water. She only had one bag, which she dumped in a lake on her way home to put on a white dress for church.

He still felt the blood on his hands. He liked Zelena even less than Belle did, but she would find him in the middle of the night scrubbing at his hands. She suggested he talk to Dr. Hopper, but Gold insisted he would die with this burden.

He was a sinner, but she loved him. Belle never pictured herself growing up and falling in love with someone capable of murder, but she felt safe around him. Initially it was surprising that the first man to treat her with decency was capable of terrible things, but he'd always been careful around her. Even their first few times in bed he was scared of hurting her.

Everyday they feared being caught. If not for what they did to Zelena, then for the dozens of other crimes they committed while working for her. The town seemed friendly and welcoming at first, but Gold gained a bad reputation as he became everyone's landlord. The town alienated him, alienating her by extent. She could tell that everyday he held himself back from giving into the devil inside him and reverting to their old ways. He knew he wasn't a landlord, just as she knew she wasn't a librarian. They were criminals. It was who they always will be.

She thought that finding a home in Storybrooke would be easy. But they were out of their fucking elements. The burden of being a killer would haunt him no matter how comfortable their home felt. She wished she could take the burden from him. She wished she could go back in time and change something so that he didn't carry this immense guilt around.

When she met him she'd only been working for Zelena for a month doing small tasks on the computer. She'd been overcome with guilt after their first bank robbery in Chicago, but he'd told her that she had to tell herself that she was doing the right thing. The more she repeated it the more it felt true. If she wasn't working for Zelena she surely would be living on the streets. Zelena got to her at just the right time. Belle was desperate for work when she met Zelena. She knew that the crimes she committed were terrible, but she was able to use the money she stole to pay for online college. In a time of desperation, she could forgive herself for her shoddy self-preservation methods. It was her only option.

He did the dishes; he always insisted that he do the chores since his work hours weren't as long as hers. She suspected he liked to keep his hands busy. She sat on the counter, a glass of wine by her side and a book open in her lap. When he seemed preoccupied with the dishes she let her eyes wander over his slim form. He'd shed his jacket and waistcoat, working with his sleeves rolled up. Biting her lip, she watched the muscles in his back and forearms work. Her stomach clenching, she slid off the countertop. She considered going up to him but decided against it. When they moved here, she'd expected they would make the rings on their fingers actually stand for something. They'd been in love for years; it made sense. For some reason, though, he seemed reluctant to settle down with her like that. She'd never understand him. She left the room, deciding to take a bath.

Standing next to the clawfoot tub, she ran her fingers under the running water, testing it for its warmth. After plugging the drain she unsuccessfully attempted to drag the zipper of her blue dress down her back.

Just then she felt arms around her waist, grabbing her and pressing her against the wall. Her hands rested flat on the wall, her forehead just barely touching it. Behind her, Gold buried his face in her hair, peppering her neck with open-mouthed kisses. His large hands ghosted over her stomach for a moment, before whirling her around to face him. He got to work pulling down her stockings and underwear, as she leaned back into the wall, too stunned to know where to put her hands. His pants fell to the ground, and he didn't bother stepping out of them.

Finding each other's mouths, he bunched her dress up around her waist, sliding into her already wet heat with ease. As he set up a rhythm, she grabbed onto his shoulders, wrapping her legs around his body so he could go deeper. With each thrust, he grunted into her mouth. His hand snaked down between them to rub circles around her clit. As she could feel her climax building, she tore her lips away from his in favor of nipping at his neck. He pounded into her, her nails scraping against the back of his shirt. She came with a cry, him following right after.

"You know 'hello' works, too." She teased as he lowered her slowly to the floor. When she came to her senses she realized the water was still running in the tub. Her eyes darted towards the edge, and she sighed upon seeing that it wasn't yet spilling over. "Join me?" She asked, turning off the faucet.

He nodded, "Need help with your zipper?" She let him unzip her dress and waited for him to take his shirt off.

She helped him into the tub, knowing his ankle must be killing him by now. She was his strength. She convinced Gold that he did what he had to do back in Alabama. He had no other options. Without him, they would still be working for Zelena. He wasn't exactly Prince Charming, but he did save both of them. He was good and he was bad and he was all that she had. She couldn't lose him to the darkness. They sat in the tub until their fingers were wrinkled; until they'd talked about so many mindless things that they could forget who they were. At the end of the day, they weren't criminals, they were just Gold and Belle and they were in love.


End file.
